


Way Back

by Automartyr (Brynnen), Brynnen



Category: Cabin Pressure, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Douglas' family, Gen, Mycroft is M, Recruitment talk, university days
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-29
Updated: 2017-04-29
Packaged: 2018-10-25 11:51:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10763682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brynnen/pseuds/Automartyr, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brynnen/pseuds/Brynnen
Summary: Douglas and Mycroft go way back.Just two far too clever young men feeling their way through their first face to face contact.





	Way Back

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Français available: [En arrière](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10888344) by [AzorART](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AzorART/pseuds/AzorART)



'You're too clever for this.' A voice murmured in Douglas' ear as he sat through a lecture on febrile fitting, sketching a cubist portrait of the lecturer in a vain attempt to try and stay awake. God he was bored!

Douglas raised an eyebrow at the comment. He probably was, given how many of his coursemates were making heavy weather of the course, but reading medicine at Oxbridge was pretty much considered to be as clever as it got, so he'd gone along with it for want of anything better to do. The stranger had read all of that in Douglas' posture, Douglas surmised and the young doctor in training felt a surge of interest in what might be the cleverest person he'd met thus far in his life. It wasn't often he met someone more intelligent than himself.

After the lecture Douglas followed the stranger across the quadrangle, through town and to a duckpond in the park. The stranger was just a shade shorter than he, younger too. He was soft around the middle, but with cold, grey eyes that had swept over Douglas and judged him in seconds. He looked vaguely familiar, a figure seen at a distance but Douglas didn't know him.

The stranger already knew his schedule, so his name, age and biography were probably also in his possession. Cliches bored Douglas, so rather than admit the stranger had the advantage of him, he waited for the man to let him know what was up.

Mycroft scattered breadcrumbs across the surface of the water, noting the older student's deliberate stillness. It was rather obvious, but the show of patience and the quick, assessing glance that had preceded it were promising signs. Richardson wasn't nearly as dull as most people Mycroft suffered through on a daily basis.

'What would you had read if you weren't under your father's thumb?' Mycroft asked, mainly to break the silence before it spooked his quarry. He was still feeling his way through not intimidating new acquaintances.

Douglas grinned at the stranger, tickled by the non-sequitur. 'I always thought of myself as a practical man, more vocational than ivory-tower intellectual.'

Good, conscious and unconscious minds were consonant on that. Mycroft nodded and responded. 'I'm looking for a few clever, strong people willing to do less obviously intellectual jobs. You'd make a good pilot and we need a clever, competent person who can cross borders legitimately without notice.'

Mycroft looked back at Richardson as he delicately trailed the offer before the other man. It was oddly nerve-wracking. Richardson was intuitive and contrary enough to throw a spanner in the works just to see what would happen. Frankly, while not intellectually up to his own standards, Mycroft had to admit that if the man turned rogue he was certainly capable of proving to be a headache.

'Your country needs you?' Amusement bubbled up in Douglas' voice. He was being wooed, evidently for something reasonably covert. If the stranger was Russian then he was going to find Douglas' steadfast preference for female company in bed awkward. It was a thrilling being wooed in his own right, rather than for his father's connections or his ability to get hold of certain items of contraband.

'Frankly it could get along without you just fine, but you are the best man for the job I'd like you to take, so in this context, yes, your country does need you.'

The slightly exasperated tone as the stranger cut down the very idea that he might have any power in this negotiation tickled Douglas. The stranger had exerted a degree of effort to select him, to contact him and make the offer; he was needed. The only real question was did he want what was being offered?

Richardson's eyes were hooded as the young man considered the offer. Douglas peered into the future Father had planned for him - becoming a surgeon, brain or hear for preference despite the fact Douglas was far more interested in psychiatry, the science of what made people tick. His desires were immaterial in the slog through the years to SHO, registrar then finally consultant, all the while being the sort of exemplary, dull citizen that wouldn't jeopardise his father or brother's political ambitions.

Douglas looked at the stranger. He'd be trading in his father and brother's control for this man's, but it sounded like he'd be doing it in the service of the greater good, rather than just tawdry ambition.

Mycroft knew as soon as Richardson shifted his weight backwards slightly onto his heels that he'd made the right decision. 'Excellent. Follow me.'

Douglas did, for the next decade and a half.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a one-shot. If anyone wants to spring off and write spy master Mycroft and double-0 Douglas as a result of this then link to the fic in the comments. I tried to write it, but lacked the writing mojo!


End file.
